SATURDAY SOFA CINEMA: TOY STORY 1 & 2

It’s nice to immerse yourself in a fantasy land now and again isn’t it? Travel off to a magical world of cowboys, space-raiders, dinosaurs and talking vegetables? Well, that’s what you get for taking acid last night, so now you’re coming down and sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for yourself, we suggest watching Toy Story AND Toy Story 2 to make everything seem better. Why? Because they’re very GOOD.

Sometimes you can’t beat a nice, clean, colourful animated flick, and the kings of the computer cartoon are undoubtedly Pixar, and the king of their output is undoubtedly the Toy Story franchise. The original was the first feature-length computer generated movie ever, and it ushered in a style of movie-making that has proved enduringly popular and has consistently dominated box-offices the world over.

THE FIRST TWO TOY STORY MOVIES ARE FUCKING ON TODAY YOU BASTARDS.

Toy Story concerns Woody – a wooden (obviously) cowboy who knows he’s a toy, and a plastic fantastic space commander called Buzz Lightyear who unfortunately doesn’t know he’s a toy – this causes problems between the two. Most of the film concerns Woody and Buzz arguing over whether they’re real or toys (even though Buzz always stops moving when Andy (their human owner) comes into the room – he wouldn’t fucking do that if he thought he was real WOULD HE?), but then extra things happen like their owner’s mental next-door neighbour grabs them and almost turns them into gross, mangled hybrid-toys like the kind we used to make. Power Rangers superglued to Stretch Armstrong = Power Armstrong (follow us on MSN messenger, PoWeRaRmStRoNg69XXX@hotmail.com).

Next up is Toy Story 2, and this time around it’s about Woody getting toynapped by an ‘evil’ toy collector and so all his toy mates have to go off and save him, innit. Along the way they meet a couple of new toys, like an alternative Buzz Lightyear and also the fucking intensely annoying Jessie who continually straddles (PUN FUCKING INTENDED) the edge of completely ruining the film for everybody involved.

Anyway, if it wasn’t for that butt-clenching blackboard-scratch of a character, Toy Story 2 is as good as Toy Story. Pixar have a real knack for crafting a huge ensemble of great characters – each of whom you’ll genuinely care about (apart from Jessie) – and putting them into properly exciting situations and exhilarating set-pieces. It’s also really funny for all ages – for the kids you’ve got people falling over and getting hit by things (we also find this funny) and for the adults you have all the hilarious sexual innuendo that the kids won’t get, like when Buzz says “This is going to be hard” and Jessie says “That’s what she said” and Buzz says “Fuck off Jessie, no one even likes you.”

We’re paraphrasing here of course.

So yeah, we’d suggest you sort your life out and watch them both, because if you haven’t seen them, you’re dead, and if you have, then watch them again.

Toy Story is on ITV2 at 2.20pm and Toy Story 2 is straight after at 4.10pm.

It doesn’t give much away about the film but Pixar are going all-out in making Monsters University seem like a legitimate place of learning. They’ve even created a website for the university HERE. Monsters University hits cinemas on 12 July 2013.